It's been a while

It's been a while since I last posted.  Let's just say the end of the year got pretty crazy and then I went on summer mode.  It was hard for me to get motivated to update this blog.  But now the school year has started, and I'm back to trying to update this blog more regularly.

Since I never did follow up with the conclusion of 20 Time in my Anatomy and Physiology class last year, I'll have to do one at some point soon. Suffice to say it was great experience.  It definitely wasn't perfect, and I have some things I will tweak, but it was meaningful experience for most students and rewarding for me to see how they grew through the experience.  I will be doing it again this year, and to some extent with my biology classes too.

This school year is going to be great year.  I'm really trying to take my biology class to the next level. For the last 6 years I've taught a flipped class, which has been a great experience.  But now I see it becoming much more than that as I try make it truly blended and student centered.  Below is a list of new things I'm doing in my class.

1. Pilot a BYOD program for the district.
2.  Use student blogging for documenting student learning, increasing communication and collaboration, and reflecting on what they've learned.
3. Student Centered Classroom: Increased student responsibility so I become more of the guide on the side rather than the sage on the stage.
4. Class Twitter Page (@OrreBiology) to showcase what we're doing in class and network with parents and others outside of our city.
5. Mindfulness and Social Emotional Learning.  This is something I've been doing since last year, but I'm really looking to increase this more.
6. Genius Hour/20 Time. For bio, we're calling this "inquiry hour."  I'm going to try and squeeze this into the year.


It's a lot of new stuff, but professionally I'm just not happy unless I'm really trying new things.  I feel like I can always make the class more interactive, fun, and a better learning experience for all.  My goal for this blog this year is to document my progress with each of these and reflect on my experience.

Here's to a great year.